Jesinta Franklin gets refreshingly honest about motherhood and says it’s both ‘amazing’ and ‘awful’
Jesinta and Buddy Franklin welcomed two children within 12 months.
When it comes to the ups and downs of motherhood, model and mum-of-two Jesinta Franklin is not one to shy away from telling it how it is.
Jesinta, 31, who has Tallulah (3yo) and Rocky (23mo) with her AFL star husband, Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, opened up the realities of motherhood and postnatal depletion during an interview on Sunrise.
The children’s book author told hosts David Koch and Natalie Barr: “I think I’m still recovering now. I found my anxiety was higher. I had a lot more mentally flat days that I was used to and I was never used to feeling like that.”
Jesinta continued: “It’s really hard becoming a new mum and I just think we need to be more open about it.”
“Motherhood is the most amazing thing and it’s sometimes the most awful thing as well.”
Jesinta described the rollercoaster ride of mum life saying, “Motherhood is the most amazing thing and it’s sometimes the most awful thing as well.”
She also touched on the need to be honest with both herself and others, and not always feeling pressured to be and appear to be happy.
“I have to start being honest,” she said. “When people were asking me how I was, instead of saying it’s amazing I was like “You know what, today having a really bad day.
“I still have really hard days, but the good days are now better than the bad days.”
“I still have really hard days, but the good days are now better than the bad days.”
In August 2022, Jesinta spoke to Women’s Health magazine about suffering from postnatal depletion after the births of Tallulah and Rocky.
“I had gone through – three years prior to having my daughter – miscarriages and then IVF and then finally fell pregnant with her, and then when I had her, we went into lockdown,” Jesinta says.
“Then, when she was five months old, [I found out] that I was eight weeks pregnant [with son Rocky] and then going through another pregnancy… And then when Rocky was 12 weeks old, we went into another lockdown, and my husband went away again.”
She continues: “I felt like there were so many things that compounded in those two years that weren’t just me having two children within the space of 12 months, but it was lockdowns, and not being able to see my family, not being able to have the support, living in AFL hubs, having a husband that was on the road constantly.”
In the space of 12 months Jesinta gave birth to a daughter, Tallulah, and then a son, Rocky.
Jesinta told the magazine that being able to acknowledge the fact that there will be good and bad days to parenting was important.
“It’s OK that you’re going to have days when brushing your teeth and having a shower are going to be your biggest accomplishments. Just surrendering to the fact that it’s going to be chaotic, it’s going to be messy, the house isn’t going to be tidy.”
